Guest Post: Tourism Organizations & Domain Names

This is a guest post written by Rob Sequin, who has been a domain investor since 1999 and a domain broker since 2004. He specializes as a domain buyer broker and sales broker in travel related and geodomains. He just started the Travel Domain Newsletter featuring travel domain related news, domains wanted and domains for sale.

A while back Elliot wrote a great article “Visit Geo Domain Names Owned by Tourism Boards & CVBs”  that generated more than 100 comments.

I have been an active buyer, seller and broker of geodomains and travel related domains so when I saw the Exhibitor List from the recent New York Travel Show, I was curious to see the domain names that tourism organizations were using to promote their regions.

I was generally impressed to learn that most of these organizations appreciate the value of a good domain name. Some use pure geo domains, others use .travel and some use a prefix such as visit or go so most are using decent to high quality domain names.

Here is a list of tourism related organizations that recently exhibited at the New York Travel Show:

  • Africa Travel Association – AfricaTravelAssociation.org
  • Alaska – TravelAlaska.com
  • Anguilla Tourist Board – IVisitAnguilla.com
  • Antigua Hotels & Tourist Association – AntiquaHotels.org
  • Argentina National Institute of Tourism Promotion –  Argentina.travel
  • Aruba Tourism Authority –  Aruba.com
  • Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority –  AlanticCityNJ.com
  • Barbados Tourism Authority –  VisitBarbados.org
  • Beaches of Fort Myers & Sanibel –  FortMyers-Sanibel.com
  • Belize Hotel Association –  BelizeHotels.org
  • Belize Tourism Board –  TravelBelize.org
  • Botswana Tourism –  BotswanaTourism.us
  • British Virgin Islands Tourist Board –  BVITourism.com
  • Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association Education Foundation – CaribbeanHotelAssociation.com
  • Caribbean Tourism Organization – CaribbeanTravel.com
  • Cartagena de Indias Tourism Board – CartagenaDeIndias.travel
  • Cayman Islands Department of Tourism – CaymanIslands.ky
  • Central Florida Visitors & Convention Bureau – VisitCentralFlorida.org
  • China National Tourist Office – CNTO.org
  • Costa Rica Tourist Board (ICT) – VisitCostaRica.com
  • Croatian National Tourist Board – Croatia.hr
  • Cruise Line International Association – Cruising.org
  • Cruise Planners/American Express – CruisePlanners.com
  • Curacao Tourism Corporation – Curacao.com
  • CYPRUS TOURISM ORGANIZATION – VisitCyprus.com
  • Czech Tourism – CzechTourism.com
  • Discover Dominica – Dominica.dm
  • Dominican Republic Tourism Board – GoDominicanRepublic.com
  • Dutchess County Tourism – Hudson Valley Region – DuchessTourism.com
  • Ecuador Ministry of Tourism – Ecuador.travel
  • Egyptian Tourist Authority – Egypt.travel
  • Embratur-Brazilian Tourist Board – BrazilTour.com
  • Emerald Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau – EmeraldCoastFL.com
  • Florida Tourism Industry Marketing Corporation – VisitFlorida.com
  • FLORIDA TREASURE COAST – TreasureCoast.com
  • Florida’s Space Coast Office of Tourism – VisitSpaceCoast.com
  • Hungarian National Tourist Office – GoToHungary.com
  • India Tourism – IncredibleIndia.org
  • Israel Ministry of – Tourism GoIsrael.com
  • Jamaica Tourist Board – VisitJamaica.com
  • Japan National Tourism Organization – JapanTravelInfo.com
  • Jordan Tourism Board North America – VisitJordan.com
  • KOREA TOURISM ORGANIZATION – VisitKorea.or.kr
  • Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce & CVB – LakeGeorgeChamber.com
  • Louisiana North – ExploreLouisianaNorth.org
  • Louisiana Tourism Coastal Coalition – VisitLouisianaCoast.com
  • Louisiana’s Wetlands Cultural Trail – VisitLaFourche.com
  • Maine Office of Tourism – VisitMaine.com
  • Martinique Promotion Bureau – Martinique.org
  • Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism – MassVacation.com
  • Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau – GoHawaii.com
  • Mexico Tourism Board – VisitMexico.com
  • Ministry of sport and tourism of Kamchatskiy krai – VisitKamchatka.com
  • Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Uruguay – UruguayNatural.com
  • Ministry of Tourism of Cambodia – TourismCambodia.org
  • Mongolian Travel – MongolianTravel.com
  • Moroccan National Tourist Office – VisitMorocco.com
  • Mt Washington Valley Chamber of Commerce – MtWashingtonValley.org
  • Namibia Tourism Board (NTB) – NambiaTourism.com.na
  • Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board – NassauParadiseIsland.com
  • New Brunswick Tourism – ACTP-PTCA.ca
  • New Jersey Travel & Tourism – VisitNJ.org
  • New Smyrna Beach Visitor Center – NSBFLA.com
  • NH Division of Travel & Tourism – VisitNH.gov
  • NICARAGUAN TOURISM BOARD – VisitNicaragua.com
  • Pacific Asia Travel Association – PATA NY Chapter – PATA.org
  • Palm Springs Bureau of Tourism – VisitPalmSprings.com
  • Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau – VisitPanamaCityBeach.com
  • Panama Tourism Authority – VisitPanama.com
  • Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion Authority – PapuaNewGuinea.travel
  • PENNSYLVANIA’S LAUREL HIGHLANDS – LaurelHighlands.org
  • Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce – VisitPensacola.com
  • Phillipine Tourism – ExperiencePhillipines.org
  • Puerto Rico Tourism Company – SeePuertoRico.com
  • Quito Tourism – Quito.com.ec
  • Rio Convention & Visitors Bureau – RCVB.com.br
  • Romanian National Tourist Office – RomaniaTourism.com
  • Saint Lucia Tourist Board – StLuciaNow.com
  • Ski Areas of New York, Inc. – iSkiNY.com
  • South African Tourism –  SouthAfrica.com
  • Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau – SriLanka.travel
  • St. Kitts & Nevis Tourism Authority – StKittsTourism.kn
  • St. Lucie County Tourism – VisitStLucieFLA.com
  • St. Maarten Tourist Office – VacationStMaarten.com
  • St. Petersburg/Clearwater Area Convention & Visitors Bureau – VisitStPeteClearwater.com
  • Stowe & Okemo, Vermont & Green Mountain Railroad – GoStowe.com
  • Sullivan County Visitors Association – SCVA.net
  • Tahiti Tourisme North America – Tahiti-Tourisme.com
  • Taiwan Tourism Bureau Office in New York – TBROC.gov.tw
  • Tanzania Tourist Board – TanzaniaTouristBoard.com
  • The Tourism Authority of Thailand – TourismThailand.org
  • Tobago Division of Tourism and Transportation – VisitTobago.gov.tt
  • Tourism Council of Bhutan – Tourism.gov.bt
  • Tourism Fiji – FijiMe.tv
  • Tourism Malaysia – Tourism.gov.my
  • Tourism Prince Edward Island – TourismPEI.com
  • Trinidad and Tobago Tourism Development Company – GoTrinidadAndTobago.com
  • Turks and Caicos Tourist Board – TurksAndCaicosTourism.com
  • Ulster County Tourism – UlsterCountyAlive.com
  • United States Virgin Islands Department of Tourism – VisitUSVI.com
  • Utah Marketing Organization – VisitUtah.com
  • Virginia Tourism – VisitShenandoah.org
  • Visit Orlando – VisitOrlando.com
  • Visit Tallahassee – VisitTallahassee.com
  • Whiteface/Lake Placid – WhiteFace.com
  • ZAMBIA TOURISM BOARD – ZambiaTourism.com

I like most of these domains. There is good use of .travel, Visit.. and country codes. All of these are very appropriate.

I have to give credit to these organizations that are using the pure geo brand; the Aruba Tourism Authority using Aruba.com, the Curacao Tourism Corporation using Curacao.com and the South African Tourism Board using SouthAfrica.com.

There are some acronym domains that I suppose are appropriate but they certainly won’t get much search engine love and may not be easy to remember. I have to point out the really bad domains in the list… New Brunswick Tourism using ACTP-PTCA.ca, India Tourism using IncredibleIndia.org, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Uruguay using UruguayNatural.com and Tahiti Tourisme North America using Tahiti-Tourisme.com. Sorry but in the US we spell it tourism.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

23 COMMENTS

  1. I currently own these geo domains.
    visitsmiami.com
    vistslasvegas.com
    visitsdubai.com
    visitschicago.com
    visitsnewyork.com

  2. @ Rh

    Nobody says “I visits New York” or “come visits New York” or “Visits New York” so as a domain name, it doesn’t make much sense to me.

    VisitsNewYork.com was just created on March 4, so I find it suspect that you would be receiving offers to buy them already.

  3. Rob, Nice work compiling all those names! I love your other list that you have compiled of companies using the generic names as well.

    Btw, I have TourismInfo.com (2001 name).

  4. A number of cities use “Cityof_____.com” or “CityLL.com” where LL represents the state code as their domain. I’ve also seen the use of .Org with city names. Note these are actual city websites – not domainer minisites. My “HollywoodBeach.info” site now outranks the city of Hollywood’s HollywoodFl.org site for “Hollywood Beach Florida” but I still have some work to do for the shorter “Hollywood Beach” – still on page 3.

  5. Good post Rob! It seems amazing to me how some, otherwise seemingly professional, organizations still settle for sub-par domains as their World-Wide Internet Address.

    I have a couple of “Aged” (14 year old) Travel Domains that you might be interested in purchasing or brokering:

    Travel2America.com
    Travel2Cuba.com

    I also have a couple of Caribbean Geo domains:

    NorthernCaribbean.com
    SouthwesternCaribbean.com

    Saludos,

    Rob

  6. @Rob
    Thanks for this nice article. But I disagree with you about the use of incredibleindia.org. India Tourism has several TV/ newspaper/ magazine ads with the slogan “incredible India”. I think from a marketing stand point, it is a perfect choice.

  7. I own ChinaGateways.com would make a good site for travellers to China or people doing business there. The Chinese Government own ChinaGateway.com

  8. @elimam

    Glad to hear that India is putting a lot of effort to market the brand Incredible India with incredibleindia.org.

    The two words together are great but need LOTS of marketing to make it memorable for people. From a domain name perspective, I don’t care for it.

    In many cases the domain owner can spend a lot of money on marketing or a lot of money on a good domain to capture mindshare.

    Both can work but when the marketing campaign is over the traffic may die down. With a good domain, there is always traffic and value.

  9. Ref “. I have to point out the really bad domains in the list… ”

    SCVA.net belongs at the top of really bad domain name list.

    One man one vote.

  10. I would agree that the name has to make sense for it to be memorable. I deal with lower level two and three word domains, mainly for microsites and sub-brands (I know my place guys!) but I wouldn’t mind your take on ‘what makes sense’. I have a few geo’s with a different slant on the entry words, using ‘go for’ instead of ‘go to’ or ‘visit’.
    eg. GoForChina.com, GoForBrazil.com and GoForCuba.com.

    Would appreciate any (non offensive) feed-back

    Cheers

  11. Only own 2 myself VisitRio.org and VisitRomeItaly.org got into this niche way too late, inspired 100% my Mike Berkins notable sales a few years ago for the “visit” geo space.

  12. I have been a travel journalist for more than 30 years. It was after a nano tech company came to me to purchase the .com of my surname that I started to think about travel domains, and the future.

    As fellow Canadian Wayne Gretzky once said: A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.

    Everything in travel media has been changing so fast. Where would we be going?

    Over the past several days news sources, including LATimesBlogs, have published “100 million TVs will be Internet-connected by 2016.” I believe that eventually consumers will surf on their TV’s, and at some point that will include affordable glasses-free 3D TV’s.

    Think about this from the viewpoint of a consumer. If you saw these two addresses, and you had the technology to view either, which would you look at first: 3DTahiti.com or Tahiti-Tourisme.com?

    I believe, especially for travel consumers, that eventually it’s going to be the name that promotes an opportunity for an immersive experience. Not just for the CVB’s, but for the tourism operators who have product in those locations.

    I own 3DTahiti.com, 3DBali.com, Cruising3D.com, 3DLondonTour.com, 3DParisGuide.com, etc. Oh, and 3DNewBrunswick.com / NewBrunswick3D.com. It’s why my tag line is ‘Domain Names Everyone Will Want To Visit.’ As the technology evolves I plan to develop some myself, sell some, and make it possible for colleagues to develop others. You can see more at 3DTravelDomains.com or IzonDomains.com.

  13. Hello,i just registered few tourism domains with ”visit” prefix and i would like to get your opinion on their potential value, VisitLouvre.com ,Louvre museum visit arround 8 million tourists yearly, VisitOktoberfest.com ,Oktoberfest is a very popular German festival that gets arround 6 million tourists yearly,and VisitEiffelTower.com ,Eiffel Tower have arround 6 millions visitors per year.

  14. I’m interested in “go” prefix for travel domain name such as golisbon.com, gohawaii.com or gosoutheasasia.com. “go” is in th etop ten of The 5,000 Most Frequently Used Domain Name Prefixes and Suffixes (leandomainsearch.com).

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent Posts

Some Thoughts on .AI Domain Names

4
There is no question that .AI domain names have become a hot topic of late. With considerable amounts of venture funding flowing into AI...

Handoff to Dan on Imported Leads Can be Confusing

0
I've been using the lead import option at Dan.com more regularly. Although the 5% commission is not ideal, transactions tend to move more quickly...

ArtificialIntelligence.com Goes Up for Sale

8
I tried to buy the ArtificialIntelligence.com domain name multiple times over the last 10 years. The emails I sent to the registrant went unanswered,...

EU Gives More IP Protection to Food & Drink Producers

0
Did you know that some well-known food and drink varieties are protected intellectual property regulations? Popular types of drinks and foods that are protected...

Price Testing

1
In 2022, my wife and I decided our kids were ready for some big mountain skiing and we planned a trip to the Rocky...